Cheese and Garlic Biscuits

Round about these parts, we don't have many fancy restaurants.  Fact is, our little town is so small our children are excited to have pizza from the gas station in town.  No joke.  That's my disclaimer so I can justify that 'out to eat' generally means a chain restaurant for us, and that's big time.  I'm sure you can guess which chain restaurant carries cheese and garlic biscuits.  Not that we take our family of six to that restaurant.  We stopped that after we grew from a family of four, back when two of those four were under 5 and could share one kids meal and eat off our plates.  

That doesn't mean my family should be denied the pleasure of the chain restaurant's very popular side item.  Particularly when it's so easy to make, goes so well with soup and anything off the grill, and is a favorite among one of our favorites--bread.

This picture, or pictures just like it, may begin to seem familiar to you.  It seems many of the items I blog about start just this way:  flour, baking powder, salt and butter.

So pretty as the sun starts to go down in my kitchen, and so easy to change to mealy crumbs in about five pulses of my handy-dandy food processor.  The cheddar can be tossed in and pulsed a few times, too.

  A new bowl, some buttermilk, and walla.  Biscuit batter.

This is so easy to make because it doesn't require rolling or cutting like traditional biscuits, and it doesn't have yeast so it doesn't require a rise time.  Instant gratification...or at least gratification in like 25 minutes.  These just get scooped onto parchment paper-covered pans and popped in the oven.

And as if they didn't have enough fat in them, they get brushed with garlic butter when they come out.

Your house will smell savory and buttery.  Your family will be waiting at the table.  They may bring you flowers and promise to do the dusting and clean the bathrooms if you will make more.  

Ok, maybe not that.  But I bet they'll fight over who gets the last one, and they'll ask you to make them again.  High praise around here.  But of course, you remember my crowd--we think convenience store pizza is good, too.  Guess you'll have to try them to find out.

Cheese and Garlic Biscuits
Adapted from Cheese Garlic Biscuits II
Makes about 18 biscuits

2.5 c bread flour
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 c. butter
1.5 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1.5 c. buttermilk
3 T butter
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  In a food processor, pulse flour, salt, baking powder and butter until the the mixture resembles course crumbs.  Pulse in the shredded cheese.  Transfer to a large bowl, and pour in the buttermilk.  With a large spoon or spatula, mix the milk in just until combined with the dry ingredients.  Don't beat, or over-mix.  Line two baking pans with parchment paper or stick-resistant foil.  Drop very large spoonfuls of the batter on each pan--approximately 1/4 to 1/3 cup each.  Bake for 12-14 minutes.  As the biscuits are baking, combine softened butter and garlic powder until very well incorporated.  Remove the biscuits from the oven.  Butter the top of each biscuit with the garlic butter.  Enjoy!      

Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Sauce

I'm genetically predisposed for addiction to ice cream.  It might be why I'm also genetically predisposed to diabetes, but that's another story.  My dad passed down his love of this stuff to me, I passed it down to my children.  We're generous in our family that way.

I also married a man from the Ice Cream Capital of the World.  I don't think that's a coincidence.

For those of you who share my love, and who fondly remember hot summer days with a very loud ice cream machine being tended by someone with a bag of ice and rock salt, I urge you to invest in an ice cream maker with a freezer bowl like this one from Cuisinart.  It is life changing.  Homemade ice cream in 25 minutes.  No salt.  No ice.  A little noise. 

There are all kinds of different ways to make ice cream, but I'm going to share the hands-down-easiest one.  Ever.  Though it's great on its own, we've been known to dress it up in all sorts of fun ways--chocolate and Andes peppermint bark at Christmas, Thin Mint at Girl Scout time, cinnamon to go with pie in the fall.....  You're limited only by your creative sweet tooth.  After a recent trip to the grocery store where I spied a bag of Dark Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I was inspired to create a peanut butter ice cream, with peanut butter sauce, and chopped peanut butter cups.  It's naughty.  If you're a food journal fanatic like me, you may need to commit to an entire day of raw vegetables and light string cheese in order to have just a half cup.  But oh my.  It's worth it.

Ready?  That's it.  That's all you're going to need for an ice cream base.  No eggs.  No cooking.  It's stupid easy.  

Just pour that creamy loveliness into your ice cream freezer and set your timer for 20-25 minutes.

Tip: I've found ice cream comes out of the ice cream freezer more easily if you lightly spray it with Pam (or whatever) cooking spray.  I know that sounds gross, and you don't have to, but it prevents the ice cream from sticking so tightly to the sides.  My machine takes about 20 minutes to change the base to soft-serve ice cream.  While you wait for that to happen, you can prepare anything you want to add into your ice cream.  Dark chocolate and peanut butter.  Yum-ma.

I add anything I'm going to add after my machine has run for 20 minutes, and let it mix 5 more minutes after I add stuff in.

Here's another important tip.  If you're going to make ice cream with any regularity, buy a glass dish with a lid and keep it in the freezer at all times--even when it's empty.  If you don't, as soon as you pour your ice cream into the dish it's going to start melting back to the base, and it will be a soupy mess.  

Assembly time.  My peanut butter sauce was smooth and cooled down.  And the smell of it made my children refuse to leave the kitchen area, dancing around in anticipation.  Some licking of spoons did occur at the end of this project.  

I just layered ice cream with some sauce, then ice cream with some sauce, then ice cream.

Then I put the lid on that loveliness and put it into my freezer to let it all firm up.  Waiting is the hardest part, right?

But oh my, the wait is worth it.  Though we tend to like generous bowls of ice cream, a little of this kind goes a long way.  It's rich.  It's peanut buttery.  It's chocolate chunky.  Mmmm hmmmm.

If you want to be just ridiculous and send it over the top, pull out any extra peanut butter sauce and warm it up.  Then pour some on top.

If you just want to go plain crazy, chop up another peanut butter cup to sprinkle on top of that.  Prepare to feel gluttonous.  In the best possible way.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Sauce

For ice cream base:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 pint half and half
1 pint heavy cream
1/2 to 1 cup of peanut butter (depending on your preference)
1/2 to 1 bag of peanut butter cups (personal preference)

For peanut butter sauce
1 c sugar
1 c corn syrup (I know! Awful, right?)
1 c milk
1 c peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla

Prepare the peanut butter sauce first, because it requires boiling and cooling before it can be layered with the ice cream.  Note that the recipe for the sauce makes enough for the ice cream and about a pint of extra sauce for pouring.  Cut the recipe in half if you do not want as much extra.  In a saucepan, whisk sugar, corn syrup and milk until well blended.  Raise the mixture to 220 degrees, whisking often.  Remove from heat, and whisk in the peanut butter and vanilla.  Allow the mixture to cool--put it in the refrigerator or even the freezer if you need to speed that process along.  Be certain the sauce is still pourable; don't let it freezer or harden.

For the ice cream base, whisk the half and half, heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla and peanut butter in a pitcher.  Use your ice cream freezer as directed.  For a freezer similar to mine, wait to take the freezer cylinder out of the freezer until you are ready to pour the ice cream base in.  Set your timer for 20 minutes.  While the base is freezing in the machine, chop up the peanut butter cups.  I used about 3/4 of a bag, but you might prefer more or less.  After the ice cream has frozen for 20 minutes, add the chopped candy and allow to freeze for another 5 minutes.

Remove your clean glass ice cream container from the freezer.  Scoop about a third of the ice cream from the freezer and spread at the bottom of the container.  Pour as much peanut butter sauce as desired on top--a small amount if you want a 'ripple', more if you want very rich ice cream.  Top with another third of the ice cream, spreading the ice cream around so it covers the peanut butter sauce, then add more peanut butter sauce on top.  Finish by spreading the final third of the ice cream on top.  Place a lid on the container, and put the ice cream into the freezer for as long as you can wait.  I would recommend at least an hour so it all hardens.  When you're ready, scoop into containers and top if desired.  Decadent!

Jeans to Minis

That phrase "growing like a weed"?  I'll modify, and say our girl is growing like a tulip on a warm May afternoon.  And though this tulip's legs keep stretching, her little hips aren't keeping up.  Why don't they make longs in kid sizes?  She needs a 4 long.  We have a drawer full of size 6 jeans that still need to be cinched ridiculously at the waist, but are reaching that point where they've gone from cute to.....not. 

Pinterest to the rescue.  Last year I pinned a MaryJanes and Goloshes blog post on repurposing an outgrown pair of jeans to a miniskirt.  This week I picked up a few dollars worth of cotton in fun colors, and followed the blogger's instructions.  Super easy.  Super fast.  Super cute!  My instructions below are what worked for me, but follow the MaryJanes and Goloshes blog post for more specific instructions if you wish. 

I chose a pair of jeans that were definitely looking short for my trial run.  I really wanted to make sure the pockets were kept intact, so I used my plastic quilting ruler to cut off the legs of the jeans below the pockets, but above the crotch.  Sorry, there isn't a nicer word.  That's really what that part of jeans is called.

   

I had our girl slip them on at this point, then measured from the raw edge to the point on her leg where I wanted the bottom of the skirt to reach.  This is a 'mini' skirt, but I didn't want it to be too mini.  That ended up being 5 inches for her, so I cut one strip 5" wide, and the other strip 3" wide.

MJ & G recommended cutting each strip to a length of four times the front of the raw edge of the jean skirt.  Since I wanted the stripes to be vertical, I wasn't able to do that; this fabric had a width of about 48" so that's what I went with; one 5" strip of 48", and one 3" strip of 48".  Each strip gets hemmed on one side, then the raw edges on the other side are lined up and sewn together with a very loose running stitch so you can pull the threads to gather the material into ruffles.  I found at this point I needed to do a lot of comparing with the raw edges of the skirt to know when I'd ruffled it too much or not enough.

When it seemed ruffled tight enough so it would go around the bottom of the denim with no gaps or surplus, I sewed the left side of the strips to the right side (good sides together) so it made a circle of ruffled fabric BUT I made sure not to sew those loose threads at the top so I could still pull on them to tighten the ruffles or let them out. 

I pinned the ruffle circle to the denim, good sides together.  And of course, didn't take a picture for you.  Sorry.  MJ&G has one. This all took about a half hour.  And our jeans now look like this:

(She is so dang beautiful, even with a wildly messy braid and tomato soup on her sleeve!)  This project was so fast and turned out so well, I'm definitely going to be hacking off the legs of some of her other jeans.  Next sewing project = maxi skirts!

Snickerdoodle Muffins

Weekday mornings, when my alarm goes off at 6 am, I fantasize about sleeping until 9.  My bed never feels so comfortable as it does early in the morning.  Why is it, then, on weekends I'm out of bed by 7 because I just can't sleep any more?  I think it's because I don't want to waste a minute of free time.  I also think it's because I've got a good case of guilty mom syndrome.  Each weekday morning when our children sit bleary-eyed at the bar in the kitchen, Eli asks me for eggs.  And I look at him in exasperation because...for real?  I have no time to make him eggs, which is what I tell him every weekday morning.  So on the weekend, I feel like I need to make up those mornings of cold cereal or peanut butter toast with something a little more special.

This morning, that was snickerdoodle muffins.  Cinnamon and sugar and melted butter....the kitchen smells amazing when these are baking, and I don't have to call anyone twice to eat them.  And while they can't be called health food, they contain healthy ingredients like yogurt (dairy) and eggs (protein), and cinnamon, which I've read has major health benefits.  I'm justifying a little here, but whatever.

If you're strategic you can mix this up in one dish, which is always a plus.  I have a large glass measuring 'cup' that can be put in the microwave to soften the butter, and then everything else can go in it.  I love one-dish dishes.

I also love Reynolds jumbo baking cups.  They rock.  They're sturdier than paper liners, and they peel off without taking half the muffin.  (I did not receive an endorsement from Reynolds to say that, but they could offer me one.  I'm their biggest fan.)  Tip: ensure your liner doesn't peel off half your muffin by spraying the liners.  Don't skip that step.

These bake up fast, in about 18 minutes.  When they're still piping hot, the tops get slathered (or brushed, or however you roll) with butter, then liberally sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.  To make them cool a little faster so your family can actually hold them without burning themselves, take them out of the muffin tin and sit them on a cooking rack for a few minutes.

    

  
Our Izaak, who usually asks me to butter or peanut butter his toast on weekday mornings, sweetly asks me if I'll butter up his muffins so he can dash out to a 4-H meeting.  I can't resist his brown eyes, though I know his future wife is going to hate me for babying him like that.  I mean, really, the kid is 13 and can butter his own muffin.

Our Eli?  He devours his muffin, and then asked me for some eggs.  I guess I know what we're doing for lunch. 

 

Snickerdoodle Muffins
Adapted from the Pillsbury Complete Book of Baking, 1993

Muffins:
1/3 c butter
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c nonfat plain yogurt
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/4 t nutmeg
1/2 T cinnamon
1 3/4 c bread flour

Topping:
2-3 T butter
3 T sugar
1 t cinnamon  

Heat oven to 350.  In a glass bowl, soften the butter in the microwave.  Whisk in the sugar until the butter and sugar are well combined.  Mix in the yogurt, eggs and vanilla, stirring vigorously between each addition.  Whisk in the baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.  Then add the flour and combine with a spatula just until the flour is incorporated with the rest of the batter.  Don't overmix.  

Place liners in muffin tins, and spray the liners with nonstick cooking spray.  Fill each muffin liner about 1/2 full with batter.  Place in the oven and bake for about 18 minutes, or until muffin tops are golden and look done.  Remove from oven.  While muffins are still very hot, brush the tops with butter, then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Remove the muffins from the tin and allow to cool a bit on cooling racks.  Enjoy! 

What's Old is New Again

Before

After

My husband keeps invading my closet space.  And I continue to buy shoes.  It's created quite a dilemma.  I urgently needed a solution, but didn't want to purchase another dresser.  And then, Pin-spiration struck.

Hard.

Our youngest boy had a long, low dresser in his room that would fit nicely on a blank wall in mine, but it was a 1950's piece shared with me by my Aunt Mary 17 years ago.  The dark brown glossy veneer didn't fit with the existing furniture in our room, BUT if I painted it a fun aqua color....   OH yeah.  I could picture it with glass or nickel knobs, topped with some pottery vases I have.

Second dilemma.  If I took Elijah's dresser, he would need another.  However, this long low dresser had a brother downstairs in the man cave, holding computer parts.  Ha!  I knew it could be transformed to look similar to the Pottery Barn dresser I always wanted to put in his room, anyway.  And that would free up space for shelves to hold part of the kid's enormous Lego collection.  He already had a small bookshelf in his room, so I ran to the local WalMart and purchased two more inexpensive ones.  

This started a small spending spree that resulted in a quart of Sherwin Williams ProClassic Interior Acrylic Latex Enamel paint in Drizzle, a quart of Sherwin Williams All Surface Enamel Latex in  Rainstorm (should have bought 2), Zinsser primer, Minwax polycrylic, a picture frame for another project, sandpaper, brushes, and plywood.  I also picked up sample sizes of Velspar color-matched to SW's Luau Green and Determined Orange to paint the new plywood backs of the bookshelves.  Truly, I'm not sure I saved a lot of money by repurposing old furniture, but it has to be cheaper than therapy.  (Right?!?)  

The first step in repurposing the dressers was definitely the hardest, and not because it took a lot of work.  It was that scratching up the veneer was a commitment, and something I couldn't undo.  I was either going to ruin the furniture, or it would be brilliant.

I should have sanded the heck out of the bookshelves, but I didn't.  Wrong move.  Unfortunately they had a faux woodgrain that even the primer couldn't conceal.  With many coats.  Tip - when buying bookshelves you intend to paint, choose ones with a smooth and not textured finish.  It will be worth the extra $20.  Also, the color Rainstorm was so dark Sherwin Williams couldn't do it in the ProClassic and had to do it in the All-Purpose, and the coverage wasn't nearly as good.  It went on much more 'sticky' and not nearly as smooth.  But anyway.  I primed everything but good, with several coats on everything.

Then the magic started happening.  I can't tell you how in love with SW Drizzle I am.  I did several coats of paint on everything because I knew they would get heavy use.  I gave it plenty of dry time between coats.  While I waited, I painted the plywood I had cut to fit the backs of the little bookshelves.  They always come with that cardboard stuff, and I knew painting cardboard wasn't worth my time.  The plywood made them much sturdier pieces, and it wasn't very expensive--about $12.  

Several days after the final coat of paint I put three coats of Minwax Polycrylic on each piece.  I've read polycrylic isn't necessary on top of enamel paint, but some bloggers recommended it for pieces that would see a lot of action.  I wasn't taking chances.  Then I nailed the plywood backs onto the bookshelves and started assembling. 

 LOVE the lime-y green with the navy!

The Rainstorm color is easier to see in this one.

 

  
The aqua dresser fits perfectly in my room.  I haven't found the perfect knobs yet, and I want to let the poly cure for a while longer before I put anything on top of this low dresser, but just look at how fabulous it is.

Last, the picture frame project inspired IHeart Organizing.  The frame was painted the same color as the dresser, the glass was removed, decorative metal was put inside, and walla!  It holds my dangly earrings now.

Whew.  It felt awesome.  I inspired myself.  Next up?  This and this and this.